Have you ever wondered who decides when babies wet their diapers? I mean, it’s not the babies. They don’t have any say in it. They don’t know when it’s going to happen. They barely know what’s going on. But somehow it happens at the most annoying time, doesn’t it? You just changed them. Or you’re in the process of changing them. Or they’re sitting on your lap. Did you ever wonder who the mischievous trickster was who made babies pee at the worst possible time?

Me neither. But I found out. Sometimes destiny is funny that way.

-------------------------------

“Miss Hannah!” said one of the kids, Jeffy by name, raising his hand. “Marlene takeded my cwayon!”

Another crisis at daycare. They happened every day. “Now, Marlene, Jeffy, how do we handle this?”

They stared at me. “Ummm …” said Marlene, pausing her coloring, the red crayon she held poised over the paper.

“And what do we do now?” I asked, leaning over the two of them. It didn’t really matter to me who got the crayon. The lesson was for them to learn to work it out without hitting each other, and preferably without a screaming fit.

“Umm can I have it back when you’re done?” asked Jeffy.

“OK,” said Marlene. “Done in just a minute.” She continued coloring the cat on her page bright red for some reason.

“Good job, kids,” I said. “See? You can work it out without --”

“Miss Hannah?” asked Jeffy. “Do you need a diaper?”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I think you had a accident,” Marlene said. I looked down, and sure enough, my blue jeans had a growing wet spot on them. It was only then that I started to feel it.

Embarrassed, I said, “Um, sorry, kids, well, anyone can have accidents if they’re sick, and I guess I’m not feeling very well … excuse me …” As a teacher you learn to take surprises in stride, but usually those surprises come from the children. Blushing, I went to the teacher’s office in the back of the preschool classroom.

I had extra clothes, because kids did throw up or spill things on me from time to time. I grabbed a spare pair of jeans and went into the bathroom to change. But what was wrong with me?

I had rinsed out my underwear and trying to dry them out with a paper towel when a tiny voice spoke to me. “Oh gosh, oh gee, oh no, I’m sorry!”

There was a tiny little figure in the air near me, with an aura of flickering light behind her back. She wore a flouncy pink dress with white trim. Her hair was powder blue and braided into two long pigtails. And she carried a glowing golden wand with a shining star on the end.

“What wasn’t your fault, and wait, what are you?” I asked. “Are you … some kind of … fairy?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” she said, “you humans are never supposed to see us, not never, ever! So you probably never saw one of us before. But we take care of lots of things that you probably never even thought of. Like I was supposed to! But it’s not my fault!”

“Um, can you help me dry my underwear so I can put my pants on?” I asked quietly. I didn’t know if anyone could hear me outside, or they’d probably think I was going crazy and talking to myself.

“Oh -- sorry, I only do kind of the opposite of that,” said the fairy.

“What does that m -- oh no.” I stopped myself, with a sudden thought. “You’re not telling me that you made me … have an accident?”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” the fairy said, obviously very upset about it. She was on the verge of tears.

“You … fly around and make people wet their pants?” I asked incredulously.

“Babies and little kids!” she said. “But look! You’re Hannah Carpenter, right?” She suddenly had a little scroll in her hand, and she unrolled it and showed it to me. The print was too tiny to read, except for the name, my name, “Hannah Carpenter.” “The office got the paperwork wrong! It says here you’re supposed to be wetting! They assigned me to you! Oh no, oh no, this is terrible, but I have to do my job!”

“Your job …?”

“My job is to make the baby I’m assigned to wet their diapers at the right times,” she said. “But they made a mistake and assigned me to an adult instead! I … I can’t just not do it! I’ll get demoted to the Poopy Diaper Division!”

“I have tooooo!” she almost cried. “I’m sorryyyyy! It’s not my fault!” Then she gasped. “But I got an idea! I know how to fix it! Don’t worry! This’ll help!”

“Wait, I don’t know …” I was suddenly very worried what this fairy’s idea of “help” might be. But she waved her tiny wand toward me, and suddenly, in a flash of light and a puff of baby powder, I was wearing a diaper.

It was quite a thick diaper, too, about the size that a baby cloth diaper would be if it were scaled up to adult size in all three dimensions. It was pinned with huge diaper pins, too, seemingly scaled up from baby to adult size as well. They had heads shaped like pink bunny rabbits. There were translucent plastic panties over the diaper, and they crinkled when I moved.

I was mortified. “This is … helpful?” I asked.

“Well it’s better than wetting your pants -- and it’s a magic diaper!” she said. “I can change it with a wave of my wand! I can keep you dry this way -- well, dry on the outside -- until we can get the paperwork fixed! It’s perfect!”

“Perfect except that I’m going to be wetting my pants,” I said. “And what if I need to, you know, go number two?”

“Oh, um, well, just let me know and I’ll let you out of them,” she said. “They’re magic, so I’m the only one who can open the pins. You know, with my wand.”

“How do I let you know?”

“Just call my name,” she said. “Oh. My name is Raintree. If you say it, I’ll always hear it and come as soon as I can.”

“Oh, OK,” I said. “This is all very strange. Look, Raintree, I hope this can be worked out as soon as … what are you doing?” She was pointing at me and waving her wand.

“It was time for you to wet your diaper again,” she said. “But don’t worry, I already turned your diaper dry again!” I had felt a few tingles, but nothing else.

“Uh … thanks,” I said. “You know, I don’t have any clothes that will fit over this thing, except maybe dresses and skirts, and those are all at home. Do you have the power to, you know, summon any other clothes besides diapers? I can’t go back out there in just this.”

“Oh -- right!” she said. “Because, adult. Sorry, I haven’t worked with adult humans in centuries! But we only have the power to conjure baby clothes. Then again, you seem to like blue jeans, and there are baby blue jeans …” She pointed her wand at me again. Suddenly I was wearing jeans that fit perfectly … over my huge diaper. They didn’t hide at all the fact that I was wearing something very thick underneath them. If they’d been baggy in the legs, it would have been different, but below the diaper they were skin tight.

“OK, I’ll try,” she said, and waved her wand again. The jeans vanished and were replaced by a denim skirt, all right, with embroidered butterflies. It was big enough to fit over the diaper, which meant it made my butt look bigger than normal, but it was hundreds of times better than the jeans. I guess I was lucky that the trend was for baby clothes to look more like adult clothes lately. I had a long cardigan sweater that would hang down and hide the bulge somewhat.

“I guess that will do,” I said. “I just need to get through this day! Then I can go home and maybe try to figure out what to do next.”

Wet diaper fairies? Was I losing my mind? Evidently not, because I was still wearing the skirt, and could clearly feel the huge diaper underneath. I guess I would keep having accidents. Whatever was going on, I hope Raintree could get it fixed soon. I fixed my sweater, put my rolled-up panties and jeans in my bag, and went back out.

“Oh, there you are, Hannah,” said Irene, another of the preschool teachers. “It’s almost finger painting time.” I’d noticed she was wearing a smock to protect her clothes. I’d have to put mine on too, which would be even better, making it even less likely that anyone would notice my diaper. It still felt so huge. I guess it probably didn’t look that bad, though, since no one was staring.

“Oh, I’ll get ready,” I said, and hurried to get my smock on. It hung pretty shapelessly from my shoulders, but that was the point, to cover everything. Irene and I started mixing the finger paint cups for the children to use while one of the other teachers was setting out paper.

I didn’t really pay attention to exactly what I was doing. Melissa and Tommy were doing their very best to make hand turkeys. Rather than tell them that hand turkeys work better when you use crayons, and not so much with finger paint, I figured out how to do it with finger paint and started to show them how. I felt a soft hand on my shoulder suddenly and looked up.

Irene said softly with a giggle in her voice, “You are one of the very best teachers. Now I see why. It’s because you relate to the students and just jump right into what you are doing.”

I sat back and looked down at myself. I had made just as big a mess of myself as Melissa and Tommy had. There was finger paint all over my hands, arms, and smock. There was probably some on my face, but of course I couldn’t see. Both kids were as big a mess as I was … and I felt a warmth and knew that I had wet myself once again. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. Raintree must have come back.

I stood and said, “It keeps the children interested.”

As I left to go clean myself up, Irene said, “Yes, but it also helps that you really enjoy what you are doing.”

I took off my smock and went to the women’s bathroom. I couldn’t believe how I had felt and the amount of joy it brought to create such a mess. Melissa and Tommy felt right at home with me. “Raintree!” I called in a loud whisper.

“Hi Hannah!” she whispered, suddenly popping into view. “Oh, gosh, you’re all covered with colors -- I love that look on you!” I looked in the mirror, and sure enough, there were splotches of color from the finger paints all over my face, hands and arms, though the smock had protected my clothes.

“Ooh, I’m a mess,” I said, and started running water and squirted some liquid soap onto my hands.

She looked disappointed. “Aww, you’re getting rid of it? But it was so pretty!”

“For a toddler, maybe, but I’m not a toddler,” I said, washing my hands first. “Besides, it would get on everything.

“I suppose,” the fairy said, still looking disappointed. “But anyway, I went back to the office and asked about your case.”

“Great, thanks!” I said, soaping my arms. “What did you find out?”

“Um … well, for now, they refuse to accept that there’s a problem,” Raintree said. “But I filled out the forms for an official inquiry, so now we just have to wait.’

“Wait? How long?”

“Um, until they process your paperwork,” Raintree answered. “In the meantime, there’s a baby girl with a wet diaper!” She waved her wand at me, and suddenly I felt dry again.

“Err, thanks,” I began, blushing. Good thing she couldn’t see me blush; I was washing my face. “So … really, how long? How long does it usually take?”

“I … don’t know!” said Raintree. “I’m super duper ooper sorry, but this has never happened before! There was a time when a fairy got assigned to a puppy doggy by mistake, but the doggy didn’t complain, obviously! Well, not in words.”

I finally said with exasperation obvious in my voice, “And what are these strange urges I’m starting to have? Like with the finger paints?”

Raintree seemed to giggle behind her hand for an instant before she replied with glee, “That can’t be helped. According to the current roster, you are an itty bitty toddler girl. So, some of those attributes will show up, especially if you sort of have those tendencies anyway and are just hiding them.”

I stood in open mouthed shock for an instant. I did so love to dress up really cute and adorable when I wasn’t being a teacher. Even then, I sort of attempted to be cute in the way I dressed. It helped with the way the children accepted me and followed my instructions when they perceived me as a kindred. Still, I didn’t dress like a two year old toddler … although now that I thought about it, it might be fun to experiment sometime.

I suddenly realized what it was I was thinking as I came back to myself. No, I couldn’t allow whatever this thing was to take control; although, it was an intriguing thing.

As I grabbed my paint spattered smock and started to leave the restroom, I said, “I do hope this gets fixed soon. I really don’t want to wear a diaper and wet myself all the time.”

I stopped and turned and said with a tint of anger in my tone, Now, see here …” Raintree vanished and was gone before I could say another word.

When I got back to the classroom, the others were leading the kids in a dance. The music was something from Sesame Street. There was nothing for me to really do, so I did what the other teachers were doing -- dancing to show the kids how to do it. But something felt different today. I mean, it’s always fun, helping the kids to learn new things, but this time, it was like I was just enjoying it for itself.

Then the song was over, and I noticed it was the end of the day. Some of the kids’ parents were already there, waiting to take them home. The daycare would stay open for another hour, for parents who didn’t get off work until later, but obviously some of the staff stayed around to keep the kids occupied until their parents could show up. “OK, boys and girls,” I said, “it’s that time, time for some of you to go home -- everyone see if your mom or dad is here.” Irene was already talking to some of the parents, so I went to help those kids put things away and get out their jackets and backpacks for the trip home.

“Look, Marlene, your finger painting is all dry now!” I said, kneeling down to help her put her picture in her backpack. “You can show your mom right now, and take it home and show your dad! I think you did real -- uh …” I paused, because I realized that I had just wet my diaper again. It was not a disposable diaper -- when I wet it, I could feel it right away, and the feeling stayed, even though I could tell this huge diaper could absorb a lot before leaking. “Um, you did really great!” I tried to laugh it off.

“Miss Hannah, did you just have a accident?” asked Marlene. “That is just what my baby brother does. He stops and looks down. Mommy says maybe he will be ready for potty training soon. Will you be ready for potty training soon too?”

Had I looked down toward my diaper when it happened? I didn’t remember. I blushed, laughed, and said, “Well, that’s great, Marlene, and I hope he does great with his potty training! You will be a great big sister, won’t you, and help him grow up big and smart like you are?”

“Uh huh I will, I’m a good helper, Mommy said so!” said Marlene. “Don’t worry, Miss Hannah, I’m sure you will be potty trained soon too! Oh look, there’s Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, look at the picture I maked!” And off she ran with her things, leaving me blushing from head to toe. I was feeling younger than Marlene now, and Marlene was four. A four-year-old had just reassured me that I’d be potty trained like her soon. All I needed was a security blanket and a pacifier.

Suddenly I realized that I actually really wanted a security blanket and a pacifier.

“Arrrgh,” I said, going back to the staff restroom. “Raaaintreeeee!” I whispered loudly.

“Oh gosh! You sure get upset a lot! Yes, I know you’re wet again, because I made it happen -- I’m sorry, but I have to!” said the tiny fairy, blinking into view. “Yeah, I’m around when it happens, just invisible. It’s the rules.”

“I don’t wanna be wet!” I whined. “I wanna be dry and go potty like a big girl and …” I realized that I was sounding like the toddler I was trying not to turn into. “I don’t want to be a baby, or a toddler, or … well I just want things to go back to normal! I’m trying to help little kids learn and grow up right, and that’s hard to do when I’m turning into a toddler who wets her diapers all the time.”

“Awww, poor little Hannah!” said Raintree, and waved her wand at my diaper, which suddenly felt dry and comfortable once again. “That’s what we want too -- it’s bittersweet, watching the kids get potty trained and knowing we won’t be visiting them anymore, but at the same time we know they’re growing up and going on to become adult humans soon! It’s just the way of things. Sometimes I wish they would stay little forever, but that just doesn’t happen.”

“Well I don’t want to be little forever,” I said. “Or at all! How is the paperwork going?”

“Oh! Well, I filled in a Correction of Error form and sent it to the Department -- that’s the Department of Human Affairs,” she said. “But of course it’ll take time, because they’re very busy. They’re just like any office -- they’re so busy, but it seems like they never get anything done! Isn’t it silly? They’re like grown up humans! I’m so glad I get to go out into the world and see people and stuff!”

“Yeah, I guess grown up humans seem silly sometimes,” I said. “But there’s lot of boring stuff that has to be taken care of, I know, so the more fun stuff can happen.”

“I guess,” Raintree said. “You’re taking this very well, actually -- better than I would have expected, I suppose, though this is NOT a thing that I would have imagined happening! I don’t blame you at all for doing that -- lots of kids find it helps.”

“Doing … what?” I then realized that I’d been sucking my thumb, and didn’t know how long I’d been doing it either. I immediately pulled it from my mouth and dried it on my denim skirt. “I didn’t mean to do that! Is there any way you can stop that kind of thing from happening?”

Raintree thought. “Hmmm … not really, because it’s part of the, you know, mixup. Maybe I can talk to the other fairies in charge of you.”

“There are … others?” I asked. How many invisible fairies were around me right now?

“Sure! When you’re a baby, there are a bunch of different divisions that handle your case until you get big enough not to need them. But … the problem is that if they’re not doing their jobs, they can get in trouble too. The only way to solve this is really to fix the paperwork.”

I sighed. “What can I expect?”

“Umm, well, don’t be surprised if you get other visits from the Self-Comforting fairy in charge of your case,” she said. “And there’s the Imagination division, so you might find your thoughts wandering. And the Emotion division, for those tantrums and giggle fits. Also the Playtime fairy will be visiting you regularly.”

“Greeeeat,” I said, and sighed. “I think I got a visit from the Self-Comforting one earlier, too. I wanted a blankie and pacifier really badly. But of course I don’t have those.”

“You don’t?” gasped Raintree. “That’s not even fair! You need those things! Why don’t you have -- oh right, you’re an adult. But right now you’re not! I mean, not in the Department’s files!”

“I am so!” I said, stamping a foot on the floor. “I am I am I am!” Then I realized that the Emotion fairy might be playing with me and stopped myself, embarrassed again.

“I’ll tell them that you’re an adult and don’t have anyone to look after you,” she said. “Other than us, I mean. We’ll do the best we can, but you’ll feel better if you just go along with it. Babies should be babies, after all!” She giggled and vanished. And suddenly I noticed that I had a fluffy soft pink blanket in my hands … and a pacifier in my mouth, sized perfectly to fit a “baby” my size.

I sighed, folded up the blankie and put the paci inside it, then left the bathroom and put both in my bag. I guessed I’d be taking those home.

There were only a few kids left now; most had gone home. “Hannah? Are you OK?” asked Irene. “You’ve been spending a lot of time in the bathroom this afternoon.”

“I know,” I said. “I think … I might have eaten something that disagreed with me.”

“Oh, poor dear!” she said. “You should go home. You’re not scheduled to stay late today anyway, though I know sometimes you do. I know you like the kids. You’re a natural. You’re going to be a good mom someday.”

“Aw, thanks,” I said. “But maybe I should get home. I feel exhausted.”

“OK,” said Irene. “I’ll be fine here; don’t worry.”

After saying my goodnights, I packed up my things and went outside. I didn’t live that far away, actually -- it was one of the reasons I’d applied to work at this daycare center. It was only about a 20-minute walk. The days were getting shorter this time of year, so it was starting to get dark, but it was all right. I looked at the pretty colors of the trees, whose leaves were brown and red and gold. I laughed at some of the silly Halloween decorations that were still up. I gasped in delight at some of the Christmas lights people were already starting to put up.

Then I realized that I was getting distracted by things like a little kid and just tried to walk home. But then it was getting darker and I thought I heard something in an alleyway I passed by. Then I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked over my shoulder there was nobody there but a passerby going the other direction. Then I saw a shadow dart by to my left, but it was only someone’s cat, jumping from one front porch to the next. I gulped and kept walking. I made it to my front door, fumbled for my keys, and tried to shake the feeling that a monster was right behind me, waiting to --

I jumped inside once I got the door open, and closed it again right away, locking all the locks. Then I turned on the lights, all of them. And only then did I realize that I’d been feeling afraid of the dark -- again, like a little kid. “I know, I know, you have to do your job, but I have to get home, too,” I said to the fairies, though I didn’t know whether they were there or not.

I knew one that was there, though, because I realized that my diaper was wet -- again. It had probably happened while I was too scared to notice. Well, now I was home, and my wet diaper didn’t seem like that much of a problem. It was actually kind of comfortable. Well, the skirt wasn’t really. Neither was my top, which was really just a long-sleeved T-shirt with the daycare center’s logo on it. I unbuttoned the skirt enough to wriggle out of it and pulled the shirt off, and sat on the floor next to my bag in just my shoes, socks, bra, and hugely thick diaper. I remembered my pacifier and blanket in my bag, so I opened it up and got them out. I popped the paci in my mouth and, sucking vigorously on it, I felt the texture of the soft blanket as I unfolded it and lay down on the floor, cuddling it.

Then I sat bolt-upright again. What was I doing? True, I had felt very contented. But I wasn’t a baby! I couldn’t just leave my clothes lying on the floor, and besides, I was hungry, and it was supper time. I got up and put them away, then realized what I was wearing. I turned toward the bedroom to look for something to wear.

“Hi!” said Raintree, popping up right in front of me.

“Aaaa!” I shouted, almost dropping my pacifier and blankie on the floor.

“Oopsie, sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you! Here, let me fix your diaper.” She waved her wand, and I was dry. “You got home OK -- I’m glad! But I noticed you wanted to relax and calm yourself down a bit, so I talked to your Self-Comfort fairy, and she said you should have this.” She pointed at the living room of my apartment, where there was suddenly what looked like a gigantic baby playpen. It had sort of a door in its side, where I could presumably get in and out, which was good because its sides reached almost all the way to the ceiling. Inside it had a soft mat on the floor, white with happy nursery prints, and it was full of plushies and baby toys.

“But I --” I began.

“When you feel like that, you can go in there and close the door, and it doesn’t matter how little you feel, you won’t hurt yourself or break anything,” she told me. “Does that make sense? And also, I’ve taken care of clothes for you. I’ve conjured up a bunch of clothes that will work with your diapers. They’re all super comfy. I hope they have things fixed at the office soon, but of course they’ve all gone home for the night now, so they won’t have things fixed by morning at the soonest. Probably not then either, frankly.”

“It’s all I can do anyway,” she said. “I wish I could just fix it, but I can’t!”

“I should fix some supper,” I told her. “Do … do fairies eat? You’re a guest in my home. It’s only polite.”

“What a good girl you are!” she said. “If you have a tablespoonful of milk, that would be just fine with me. But maybe you should wear something more than that.” She waved her wand, and suddenly I was wearing a dress, pink and white, with lots of ruffles and flounces. It was a lot like the tiny one she was wearing herself. “And something to protect that if you’re going to be cooking.” She waved her wand again and I was also wearing an equally flouncy white apron/pinafore type thing over my dress.

“Oh -- thank you,” I said. Actually I wasn’t speaking as clearly as I’m writing it here, because I still had my pacifier in my mouth, but it didn’t seem to prevent Raintree from understanding me. I suppose it wouldn’t. Every human she dealt with probably had a habit of sucking on a pacifier or thumb.

So I got supper ready for myself, and got out a tablespoon for the fairy and carefully filled it with milk. “Do you like it warmed up?” I asked.

“No, cold is fine,” she said, “and thank you very much! Most of my assignments don’t exactly know how to feed me, so usually I go home to Arcadia for supper.”

“I … see,” I said. It was still difficult to prove to myself that I wasn’t somehow dreaming or having a hallucination. I sat down in front of the frozen lasagna that I’d warmed up for myself.

“Oh -- wait,” she said, waving her wand at me. Suddenly I was wearing a plastic bib with a baby animal print. “You might need that.” She did it again and said, “And that.” Just as suddenly I found myself sitting in a larger version of a baby’s high chair, strapped in with basically a seat belt, and with my dinner on a tray that was locked in right in front of me. It was still lasagna, and I still had a knife and fork, but my glass of water was now a large-sized sippy cup. “We might want to minimize those spills,” she said.

“But I’m a grownup,” I said. “I can eat and drink just fine all by myself!”

“Well, I know that with the other fairies around your mind might, well, wander,” said Raintree. “Better safe than sorry.” I had to admit that I’d seen enough to believe her. Also, my diaper was wet again. I think she did that while she was conjuring the bib and high chair. But I didn’t fuss or cry about that -- it didn’t feel too bad, and besides, I was hungry.

It didn’t dawn on me at the time to use the utensils laid on the tray in front of me. Instead, I dug in with my fingers and shoveled it into my mouth with gusto. Along the way, I discovered it made a wonderful facial, not to mention the finger painting I could do with it on the tray in front of me. Each time I grabbed a handful of the lasagna, I got most of it in my mouth, but a whole lots of it became facial, hair wash, and finger painting in front of me. OMG!! It was sooo much fun, as I giggled and made the largest mess ever.

I was nursing the sippy cup when I finally came back to my normal self. I couldn’t believe what I had just done. I also discovered I had no clue as to how to undo the highchair seat belt nor to undo the clasp holding the tray. I knew it was a simple mechanism, but the workings of it were totally beyond me.

I called out in exasperation, “RAAAIIINNNTTTRREEEEE!!!”

It sounded more like a frustrated toddler than me. Again, I was mind blown to say the least. I was actually becoming a toddler like the ones I cared for at the Daycare center.

A much larger bodied fairy popped into existence about that time. With a giggle she said in a cooing voice as she clasped her hands in front of her, “Didums little Hannah have fun? You are sooo adorable. I’m putting in an addendum to the paperwork, ’cause I think somebody’s really a baby.”

This new fairy cleaned the tray quickly, then washed my face and hands with a very large, soft, warm, and soapy cloth. All I could do is squirm. I couldn’t even protest with my face being washed.

The next thing I realized was I had been removed from the high chair and put to the large fairy’s breast. She began to pat my hinney softly as she checked my diaper. Each pat went through me like a wave of super wonderful and very intense electricity that ended in my mind with large fireworks like explosions. I couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except suck my thumb as I was carried into the bathroom.

When I did manage to come back to my right mind, The new fairy had just finished diapering me and dressing me in an adorable powder blue Snuggle Bug Romper. It was more than obvious I had on a super thick diaper and very loudly crinkling plastic panties as I was once again lifted to her breast and she began to pat my hinney in that super awesome magical way.

I gasped at the amazing, ecstatic, but also extremely comforting feelings I was experiencing, but at the same time I didn’t feel fully happy -- who was this fairy? Why was she here? What did she want to do to me? Was I in danger? And where was Raintree?

“Uhh …” I struggled to say. “Who … who awe you? An’ where is Waintwee?”

“You can call me Nutmeg, Sugar,” said the new fairy. “Or Auntie. Or Mommy, which is my favorite, but only if you want.”

“She’s a Nursery Fairy,” Raintree explained. “Looking after babies is what they do best -- baby humans, baby animals, or baby fairies, it doesn’t matter! Nutmeg loves babies, so when I told her that you might need someone to, uh, watch over you, she jumped at the chance!”

“You’re the biggest human I’ve ever looked after,” Nutmeg said. “I mean, I’ve looked after baby whales, baby elephants and even baby giants, so size doesn’t matter. I can be any size.” Suddenly she was the same size as Raintree, hovering in the air with her. “Being just big enough to pick up an adult-sized human baby is no problem!” Suddenly she was the size she’d been before.

“B-but … I’m n-not …” I said, confused.

“Don’t worry, Darlin’,” said Nutmeg. “I’m not here to turn you into a baby or nothin’. But lemme tell you … a baby’s pretty near what you are for now. All kindsa baby things are gonna happen to you. You’re not gonna be able to have an adult life ’til this is all fixed. And that means you need lookin’ after.”

“But I don’t WANNA be a baby,” I said, sounding much more upset than I thought was proper, and in fact I was on the verge of tears. “I’m … I … just feel so … outta control …”

“Yeah, we’re all super sorry ‘bout that, Sugar,” said Nutmeg.

“We’re all doing what we can!” added Raintree.

“But all the record books say you’re a baby now,” Nutmeg said, “so every fairy in the world has to treat you like you are one. Sorry you’re feelin’ so helpless. But that’s why I came. To help. This li’l Wet Diaper Fairy came to the right Nursery Fairy. By the way, hope you’re stayin’ dry, li’l Rainy!”

“I … but …!” Raintree spluttered, turning bright red. “I never ever use my wand on my own diapers! I’m not like Cloudburst!”

“Wait, Wet Diaper Fairies wear diapers?” I asked, and giggled. “That’s so cute! They must be so tiny!”

“Yeah, well, when you’re around so much wet diaper magic all day, it’s kind of necessary,” Raintree said, still blushing. “But some in the WDF Division don’t even try to keep theirs dry. I want to get a better job someday, though! Maybe I can even be a Nursery Fairy!”

“Well, I know you can do it, Rainy,” said Nutmeg, “if you just keep tryin’ hard. But now there’s li’l Hannah here. What are you all wigglin’ about?”

I realized that I was sucking on my thumb and reaching toward the big playpen that had appeared in my apartment not long ago. I stopped myself. Why did I want to go in there? I mean, sure, there were lots of awesome fun looking toys and cuddly looking plushies, but that was no reason to want to be in a playpen … oh, who was I kidding? That was exactly why I wanted to be in there. “Wan’ playyy,” I heard myself say, unable to stop myself.

Nutmeg laughed. “You’ll be much happier if you just let it happen and let me watch over ya, Sweetheart,” she said. “Don’t worry, I won’t let nothin’ happen to ya.” She unzipped the door in the playpen’s fabric side with a flick of her wand, then carefully set me down on its soft mat, then flicked her wand again, and the zipper closed back up. “It’s super safe in there, and you’ll be just fine. And we’re all right here. We don’t wanna see anything happen to ya.”

Suddenly along with Nutmeg and Raintree I saw a number of other fairies of many descriptions, all of them about Raintree’s size, who were all looking at me with smiles. “She’s so adorable!” said one with a super high-pitched voice.

“Her diaper’s gonna be even stinkier than a real baby’s,” said a grumpy one. OK, all but one of them were smiling.

“I wish I could only make her happy all the time,” said another, “but no, every baby has happy and sad moments.”

“Also curious moments!” said another.

“OK, that’s enough,” said Raintree. “I’m taking enough of a risk being visible, but I filled out the paperwork, so I’m covered by that rule. Nutmeg has to care for her, so she can be visible. But the rest of you have to stay out of sight -- you know the rules!”

“Aww,” said the grumpy one, but the rest faded from view. The one who wanted me to be happy waved before vanishing.

After playing in the playpen for a while -- I’m not quite sure how long, since this baby stuff was messing with my perception of time -- I started to feel really funny in my tummy suddenly. It felt like a million butterflies had started fluttering around. It tingled all the way through me as something began to go through slow undulating wave like spasms.

I suddenly realized what was happening. "Aww, look how adorable her ‘poopie face’ is!” said Raintree. OMG! I realized that she knew exactly what was happening! I felt so … strange and … I just couldn’t seem to bring myself to be upset over it.

I did try very hard to stop it from happening, however. To no avail.

Raintree appeared in the playpen and patted me on my head as she cooed softly, “Just relax and be a good baby. It will happen and feel so nice if you just let yourself be the baby you know you are!”

“No! I’m notta … beebebbe,” I babbled. I gasped and could feel it as the waves slowly pushed the heavy mass out of me into my diaper. It gooshed around my bottom slowly as I felt the wonderful sensations rush all through me. My mind slipped away as it continued until I realized … I was on my back, Nutmeg had me by my ankles and was cleaning my hinney with a very large and sweet smelling baby wipe.

She cooed softly, “See, Sweetheart? You actually have no choice in this. Now, tomorrow you will sort of be a big girl with lots of baby tendencies when you are at work. I’m sorry, but nothing we can do about that. I can say that all the children there will relate to you far better than ever before, and we all know why they used to before too, don’t we baby?”

I couldn’t keep my mind together as everything melded into a soft warm contentedness. Next thing I knew, a huge raspberry in my tummy followed by Nutmeg kissing my toes and playing piggies.

All I could do was screech with total delight as I squirmed and wiggled like the infant she was treating me as.

The next time my mind came back, I was cuddled in Nutmeg’s arms as she hummed a soft lullaby I think was called “Stepping Stones.” I had a large nipple of an even larger bottle in my mouth and was nursing it heartily. It tasted so warm and absolutely wonderful as it warmed my tummy and made me feel so contented and sleepy.

I made confused noises, but Nutmeg just held the bottle and said comfortingly, “Shh, Hannah, don’t worry, you just went into babyland. It will happen sometimes. We Nursery Fairies can do that. You’ve been playing and napping, but now it’s time for your nighttime bottle and off to dreamland.”

I did feel very sleepy, but I didn’t remember how I got so sleepy. I didn’t want my life to become like this! But I couldn’t stop drinking the bottle to say anything until it was empty. Eventually, though, it was.

“There you go, all gone. Good girl!” Nutmeg lifted me up onto her shoulder and thumped me firmly but gently on the back.

“I -- don’t want to --” I burped loudly and even spit up a small amount. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, excuse me!”

“Haha, good girl,” laughed Nutmeg. She set me back down on her lap and lovingly cleaned the spit up from my face with a soft moist cloth.

“I want to remember my life, not just be told sometimes how adorable I was acting!” I complained. “But yeah … I am getting pretty sleepy.”

“Let’s get you all ready for sleepy times,” Nutmeg said. So she checked my diaper, which I had wet again during the time I couldn’t remember, meaning that Raintree had visited even if she wasn’t around right now. She changed me again, this time into an even thicker night time diaper -- the daytime one was really thick already, and this one made no allowances whatsoever for being able to walk. I guess it made sense, though, since I’d be sleeping and not getting up, not even to use the bathroom.

Nutmeg waved her wand again and put me in a cute pink sleeper with a fairy princess embroidered on the front -- I didn’t see a zipper or buttons; maybe they were on the back. Or maybe there was no way to get out of it except for magic. I couldn’t tell. The sleeper had no openings for my feet or hands, and there seemed to be some kind of padding around both. I reached for my nearby pacifier without thinking why, and realized that not only did I desperately want it, but I also couldn’t actually pick it up with this sleeper on. “N-n-n …” I began to say, with an upset quaver in my voice.

“Aww, don’t worry, Sweetheart,” Nutmeg said, seeing what I wanted and picking the pacifier up to pop in my mouth, where I began sucking it vigorously, almost desperately. “I’m here, an’ I know what babies want. Seen a lot of ‘em, all kinds.” She picked me up easily and carried me into my bedroom, where there was a large crib the same size as my bed used to be. She lowered the side, set me gently down with my head on the soft pillow, and gave me a plush rabbit to hold.

“Now, just hug Mr. Bunny if you feel lonely, and we’ll never be far away,” said Nutmeg, raising the crib side back up with a click and giving my hinney another of those wonderfully amazing pats.

“And I’ll be visiting you several times during the night,” said Raintree. “I mean, I kinda have to, but this way I can check to make sure you’re all right too!” She started the mobile above the crib turning with a flick of her wand, and it played a soothing music-box lullaby. Nutmeg turned out the light.

Raintree pointed her wand at a nightlight across the room, turning it on. “We’re super sorry this happened, but you do make an adorable baby, and we’ll make sure you enjoy your extra bonus infancy -- we promise!” After kissing me sweetly on the forehead, she vanished, and Nutmeg closed the door.

I continued sucking on my pacifier, there in my sleepy world of lullabies, nightlights, fairies, and a cuddly bunny plushie to hold. This could be worse, I supposed. I heard Nutmeg and Raintree’s voices talking softly outside, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I caught a few words like, “the Hall of Records,” “but we’d have to take her with us,” and “the Mountain of Memory,” before I drifted off to sleep.

I had a terrible nightmare at one point in which I was a completely helpless baby and couldn’t even crawl, talk, or feed myself, and everything and everyone was much bigger than I was. I couldn’t get anyone to pay any attention to me, even though I was hungry and thirsty and my diaper needed changing. I was so afraid that I would be this way forever, too. But then I woke up, and I was alright, and I hugged Mr. Bunny and sucked on my pacifier, and I felt much better.

I opened my eyes suddenly and looked around. I was snuggled up to a large cuddly rabbit and had a pacifier in my mouth. I could see bars from where I lay that appeared to reach to the roof. I could also feel, much to my embarrassment, that my bottoms were very wet.

I had memories of being very small and being taken care of. Suddenly, the side rail came down and a woman leaned in and cooed softly, “Good morning Baby girl.” I felt the most sensationally wonderful; pat on my hinney that sent rushes all through me that exploded in my mind once again.

When I came to my right mind again, Nutmeg had just finished threading my hands through the puffy arm openings of one of my cute little sundresses. She finished pulling it over my head and adjusted the periwinkle lace around the arm openings.

Nutmeg began to brush my hair briskly, then made it into two long curly ponytails. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror on my vanity. I looked just precious. Nutmeg picked me up to her breast and began to pat my hinney again. I had absolutely no resistance to what this wonderful thing did to my mind.

When I came back to my right mind, Nutmeg had me over her shoulder and was patting me on my back. I couldn’t help it, I burped very loudly.

Nutmeg cooed happily, “That’s my babygirl. Now, we have to make adjustments to you. I can’t have my baby being a big girl completely, that just wouldn’t be right.

“Wait,” I said as quickly as I could manage to form those word, “I gotsa bea …”

Too late. I felt a most wonderful surge rush all through me. My mind went away for a few minutes. When it returned, I knew I was an adult, but much of my responses had been delicately over written by those of a little girl of around 3 years old. I was in effect, a little toddler that could act like a big girl.

Nutmeg placed me on my feet as she cooed softly, “There. You are all ready for daycare. The other children will accept you as one of their own age immediately. The other teachers will find they are kind of treating you like one of them too.” Nutmeg giggled, “You’re going to have a lot of fun today.”

Now, you might ask, why wasn’t I worried about losing my job? Was I concerned that I was going to show up at my place of employment not as one of the teachers, but basically as one of the students, and not as a potty-trained one at that? The answer is that no, I wasn’t, because of what the fairies had been doing to my mind. They do this stuff to babies, too, of course, but nobody notices that because we all expect it. Just imagine what our babies would be like if the fairies left them alone. Anyway, I was the happiest 25-year-old with a degree in child development, or possibly the happiest three-year-old, ever.

“I go to school?” I asked breathlessly. “I have fun?”

“Yes, you will,” Nutmeg said. “I hope you have lots of fun and play lots of games with the other little girls and boys and bring home something you made to stick on the fridge!” She was getting my jacket on me, and she had gotten me a bright pink backpack with cartoon characters on it, probably with magic.

“Yay!” I cheered with enthusiasm. “I will!”

“Then let’s goooo!” Nutmeg cheered with a big smile. She held my hand, and out we went into the world. No, I do not know whether she locked my apartment door. I am fairly certain she did not bring my keys along in any case. These aren’t things fairies concern themselves with.

I hopped and skipped my way down the street, holding Nutmeg’s hand. “Now, remember to always hold an adult’s hand when you cross the street,” she said, as we were doing just that. “Remember to stay safe, Hannah, OK?”

“Kay!” I said, but my mind was focused on all the fun I was going to have at “school” that day, of course, just as any other three-year-old would.

When we arrived, Nutmeg helped me get inside and led me to the proper classroom -- my classroom, the one I usually taught in. “Hiiii, Miss Irene!” I said to my teacher -- who was usually my coworker. Nutmeg smiled at Irene as her attention turned my way.

“Good morning, Hannah,” said Irene. “Who’s your fr--” She suddenly paused as Nutmeg smiled brightly at her. Then she seemed to start over. “Good morning, Ms. Nutmeg,” she said to Nutmeg, not talking to me at all.

“Is that so?” Irene asked, then seemed to bend over to talk to me, even though I’m almost as tall as she is. “Well, Hannah, let’s both make sure to make this a wonderful day, OK?”

“OK!!” I answered with a giggle.

“Let’s get your jacket off and put your backpack in your cubbyhole, OK?” said Irene, and led me by the hand to the cloak room to do those things. I looked back at Nutmeg, who had just gotten done waving her wand at the room and was putting it away. She looked at me and winked.

Sure enough, I had my very own “Hannah C.” cubbyhole waiting for me, and after putting my things in it, Irene led me back out into the classroom to wait for all of the other kids to arrive. Some were already there. Melissa waved at me and smiled. “Hannah! I playin’ wif the cars. Vroom vroom, this one is goin’ to the store!” She was kneeling on a mat that was printed with city streets and buildings. I enthusiastically joined in, picking up a car.

“This one is a teacher an’ she is drivin’ to school to teach all the kids!” I said.

“Now this one is goin’ home to take the food back.” And that’s how it went, while more kids arrived, and soon everyone was there and the day could begin.

I should have been worried about the kids thinking it was odd that I, obviously a grown-up, still in the body of a 25-year-old, would be playing with toys and going to daycare as a little kid. But obviously Nutmeg had done something to affect reality, or their minds. I know that now. Still, it seems weird to me that I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t even know where Nutmeg had gone. But I knew where Raintree was, because I realized soon that my diaper, which I hadn’t realized was already wet, was getting wetter.

After another one of the teachers read us a story from a book, throughout which I sucked my thumb, Irene came over and asked me if I needed to go potty. Not understanding, I shook my head no, so she said, “Well, let’s just check things out, OK, Hannah?” and led me by the hand toward the kids’ bathrooms.

Once inside, she suddenly stopped moving as if time had frozen. “Oh! Don’t worry, Hannah, not that you’re going to be worrying about anything today, but I’ll take care of this!” said Raintree, appearing above my head. She waved her wand at my diaper, which again was the thickness of a baby’s diaper enlarged to my size and covered with a large, crinkly plastic lined rhumba panty, and suddenly I felt dry again and smelled a lot like baby powder. “Irene here will think she changed your wet diaper and got you all fixed up! But we know the real story, don’t we?” she asked, winking at me and making me giggle at our little secret. I clumsily winked back at her and grinned. “Gosh, you’re so adorable. See you soon!” She vanished.

“There you go,” said Irene, washing her hands for no real reason, but she thought she needed to. “You’re a dry little girl again. Just think, someday you’ll be using the potty just like a big girl! When you’re ready, you’ll learn, don’t worry.”

“Thank you Miss Iwene,” I said.

“Well, you’re welcome, Honey!” she answered with a smile. “Now, let’s go back to class.” She took my hand and we rejoined the others, who were coloring with crayons.

In an strangely laid out and furnished office looking place full of many different kinds of fairies of all types and sizes each sitting in their own cubicle, one particularly harried looking fairy pulled a large file folder from an infinitely large file cabinet. She flitted back to her seat and opened the file on her desk.

She picked up what looked like a glowing scroll and unfurled it. The fairy grumbled to herself, “All fairies know little babies insist they are big. Now why in this universe would Raintree file a form 9281-b. The only way such a form would apply is if we made a mistake on a life force’s age.”

She opened the large folder and began to read through the first few pages. About that time, a weird looking device on her desk began to flash and tinkle loudly. She reached over and picked up something that looked the world like a honeysuckle flower connected to a vine.

She said with a slight irritation in her voice, “Yes? This is Records, Corrections Division, how can I be of service?”

A voice replied, “Forsythia, this is District Manager Bryan Snowstone. I’ve received another form about the Hannah Carpenter issue.”

Forsythia shook her head slightly. This human was generating so much paperwork! She said, “Yes, Sir. I just opened the file now and have found several discrepancies already.”

The manager replied, “I’m sure. I have an addendum counter-report filed by one of our top Nursery Fairies. Apparently, Hannah is more baby than our records indicate. Please take special note of all entries and make the necessary corrections.”

About that time, a very large and lovely butterfly flitted up to the fairy and dropped another glowing scroll on her desk. Forsythia shook her head. OMG! This was going to turn into a real mess. “Are you sure, Sir?” she asked. “The temporal records indicate that this human’s been on earth for 25 of their years. Nobody’s a baby for that long.”

“Do we know that?” asked Snowstone. “We don’t know everything about humans. We thought they were starting to see that what color they are doesn’t matter, but it turns out we were too optimistic. Now this. Much more of this, and we’ll have to get Research to do a study, and you know how long that takes.”

“Oh, no,” said Forsythia, “and so much paperwork, too!”

“You know, most of the Records fairies love paperwork,” said Snowstone. “Are you sure you’re happy there? Maybe you’d have a better time in another department. Or maybe you need a vacation?” His voice sounded concerned.

I had a colored drawing that I was very proud of, and I just knew it would be perfect to put on the fridge when I got home. But now it was lunchtime, and I was hoping I didn’t have to wear my bib today like I always did. I so wanted to be a big girl, but I knew I was still a baby and spilled food on myself. Yet somehow I was still big enough to color.

Yes, I know that most of this was illusion, resulting from the spells the fairies were casting on me because their orders told them to. But the fact was … I really was enjoying it. I had heard rumors that there were adults who liked to be treated like babies, but also that most of them were men, and gay men at that. I supposed that the straight men who were into that were probably just into fetishes and stuff, getting off on diapers and whatnot, just perverts really. I had never heard of women being into that. Besides, I liked being a little kid -- I’d never imagined being in diapers again! Though now that I was, I guessed I could put up with them enough to enjoy the rest of it -- the attention, the nurturing, the letting go of all the adult cares and worries.

“Hannah,” said Irene with a giggle. “Earth to Hannah, it’s lunch time, and Ms. Nutmeg said that means it’s time for your bib.”

Irene tied a really cute pink and white bib around my neck. It was covered with adorable little butterflies and lady bug types of critters. I’m not really sure what happened after that, but my memory seemed to recall I was lifted and placed into an adult sized high chair, which I know we didn’t normally have, and strapped in with the tray lowered and locked into place ensuring I couldn’t fall out no matter how much I wiggled or squirmed.

Irene fed me just like the other teachers fed the rest of the infants. I, of course, acted just like the rest and made just as large a mess. I sort of came back to my right mind long enough to realize that Irene was washing my face gently with a large, wet cloth.

I had vague recollections of being lifted from the high chair, my diaper being changed, and then my memories sort of became really fuddled as I received one of those wonderfully awesome hinney pats that sent electrical surges that exploded in my mind. When I next came back almost to my right mind, I was snuggled in a large crib with a plushy snow leopard cuddled in my arms, and with a very large bottle propped against it. Just as with the high chair, I also know that we didn’t have any cribs that large before that day. Nutmeg had been busy.

All I was wearing then was a diaper and the powder-blue lacy rhumba panties that matched the sundress I was no longer wearing. No one seemed to notice my breasts, as I was treated just as any of the other infants was. Even when the parents arrived to begin taking the other children home, no one noticed anything other than that I was a very adorable little toddler.

Nutmeg showed up, dressed me back in my sundress after checking my diaper. She picked me up, held me to her breast, and began patting my hinney in that magical way. I had no way to resist being regressed to the infant it seemed fate wanted me to be with that kind of thing happening all the time.

I did hear her and Irene say something to the effect that I would be returning each day, and Nutmeg assured Irene that she would supply more cute outfits and diapers. I kind of remembered being carried out, and several of the parents commenting on how cute I was before my mind drifted off once again into that awesomely wonderful infant contentedness under the many soft hinney pats Nutmeg gave me.

In an office decorated with twining flower-festooned vines, a fairy looked over several large tomes and scanned several glowing scrolls. She shook her head as she picked up something that looked like a honeysuckle flower attached to a curly vine and said, “Mr Snowstone? This is Research. My name’s Craggon. I’ve … got a real problem.”

Craggon replied with a sigh in her voice, “It is. There is a major deviation within our records. Apparently, Campbell's body had reached all the necessary milestones to be declared a non-infant, but … it’s as if somewhere along the way her spirit has remained about 3 years old. In her mind she perceives herself as an adult, but her heart begs for her to admit she’s only a toddler.”

Snowstone gasped with exasperation, “What? How is that even possible? When one of those humans reaches a certain chronological dispersion …”

Craggon interrupted, “I know, but after doing some in-depth research, I discovered that there are a small minority of them that actually remain infants even though their bodies have reached chronological dispersion. Many of them have no words for what they are, but some of them have begun calling themselves … Adult Babies.”

Snowstone shouted, ”Adult what? Toadstool sandwiches! This throws everything into a whole new realm. Just like when we found out there were male humans that were born female and vice versa.”

Craggon replied with a laugh, “I know. Many of the Infant Department will be very glad to hear this. Many of them adore the infants they have been assigned to and would love to know there is a chance the infant may never truly become an adult.”

Snowstone put his hands to his face as he let out a breath in a long slow hiss before replying, “Better begin researching who those Adult Babies are and how we can get them properly recorded and personnel assigned. I will work on changing the paperwork so we have appropriate forms.”

Craggon asked, “What about the Hannah case?”

Snowstone replied, “Reject the form 9281-b, first of all. Inform Raintree that we’re going to have a new set of forms soon, and we’ll tell her about them -- well, once they exist. Tell Nutmeg that her 9281-X has been accepted and that for now she’s assigned to be Hannah’s new … mother, until further research and notices can be arranged. And Raintree’s going to be both her personal WDF as well as the main handler of her case.”

Craggon laughed loudly, “Man, this is going to be so much fun. Imagine all those adult infants that are suddenly going to …”

Snowstone said before ending the call, “Get to it. There’s a whole lot of work to be done and paperwork to be filed.” The line went dead.

Craggon smiled as she took out her wand and tapped the Life Force book several times with it. An immediate frenzy from all the fairies around her showed the action was in progress.

“Rejected?” I asked, tears in my eyes. Was I doomed to be in diapers forever now? Was I going to turn into a baby for the rest of my life?

“I’m sooooo sorry!” Raintree said. “I want you to be happy but I don’t have any good news for you! At least nothing I think you’ll think is good! At least … unless …”

“Unless what?” I asked. I was in my playpen again, now that Nutmeg had brought me home. Evidently she had either locked my apartment door or anyone who had tried to break in had been … unsuccessful.

“Well,” said Raintree, “back at the office they’re saying that there are a lot of humans -- not a huge number, but we’re talking about maybe several thousand out of the billions of you that there are -- who feel themselves to still be babies in some way, even though they’re grown up. We didn’t know about this. They have to make up some new forms.”

“Wait -- you think that I might be one of these?” I said, through my pacifier. Yes, I was sucking on my pacifier, and not bothering to take it out to talk. It was quite soothing. And it didn’t seem to impede her understanding of what I said. “I don’t want to be a baby! That is -- I mean, I don’t want to have to be in diapers all the time, and have to be constantly looked after, and not be able to have a job and a career …”

“But I’m hearing you’re not opposed to some of that,” said Raintree with a wink. “Is that true?”

“Well …” I thought. “I guess I do kind of like being looked after some of the time,” I said. “And I have to admit that … sometimes … wet diapers feel kind of nice.”

“Yay!” said Raintree, waving her wand at me. I felt my diaper get warmer suddenly.

“Do you have to …” I began, but paused. Yes, I knew she did have to do that. According to Raintree she was now my very own personal Wet Diaper Fairy for the foreseeable future. There was now a fairy whose job it was to make sure my bladder emptied frequently into whatever I was wearing, using magic to ensure it happened. My life had gotten truly weird. “Uh, anyway, I … also love the cute clothes. I’ve always loved to dress really cute I’m not gonna lie.”

“It’s not good to lie to fairies anyway,” Raintree said. “We can tell.”

“But is there a way for me to have some of my life back?” I asked. “I mean, what if I could go to my job and be a teacher and not a baby? And what if I could sometimes be an adult at home, but sometimes not?”

“It’s not up to me,” said Raintree, “I’m sorry. Maybe they’ll have forms for that soon?”

“Well, yes, your human mother, but she thinks she raised an adult woman,” Nutmeg said. “Unless you tell her otherwise, that’s how she’ll treat you, forever, and even if you tell her, who knows what she’ll do?”

“I know she’d freak out, at least at first,” I mused.

“But I already know you’re a baby,” said Nutmeg, “and let me say that you’re one of my favorite babies that I’ve ever taken care of. So adorable!”

“Um … thanks?” I replied, uncertain whether that was a good thing. “But … what if …”“What if there’s a way for you to only be a baby part of the time?” Nutmeg asked. “I’m going to put in a request to be your mommy for the times you’re a baby, however it works out. You’re really sweet.”

“And I’m going to request to be your personal Wet Diaper Fairy, too,” said Raintree. “We want you to be happy, Hannah!” Nutmeg nodded. “So I’m going to do my best for you! Your diapers are going to be so super comfy and wet all the time!”

“I, uh, appreciate it, guys,” I said. But did I really want to be wet all the time? That would mean wearing diapers all the time, even to work, but of course that was what I was doing now -- kind of.

“For now, I think it’s bedtime for babies,” said Nutmeg. “So let’s get your diaper changed and get you in your comfy jammies and your soft warm crib.” She instantly changed my clothes with her wand, and under my bright yellow footed sleeper I could feel that I had nighttime fairy diapers on -- perfectly fitting and so thick that there was no way I could walk in them. Fortunately I wouldn’t need to. Or so I thought.

Soon I was in my crib, and the mobile overhead was playing its soft lullaby, and I quickly fell into that warm, safe sleep that I realized I’d only known since I’d started being a baby again.

Some time later, though, I began to dream. I dreamed that I was deep in an enchanted forest, dressed just as I was in a yellow sleeper and thick diapers, with a pacifier in my mouth. There was a clearing or glade nearby, and I waddled awkwardly toward it, soon finding myself below blazingly bright stars and surrounded by luminous night-blooming lilies.

“Interesting, very interesting,” said a voice, and I turned to see a small fairy hovering in the air and looking at me. She had what looked like a white lab coat and a clipboard, and she wore tiny glasses. “Welcome, Hannah Campbell. I’m Redshift, and I’m one of the fairies doing research on humans like yourself who are simultaneously adults and infants. My data will be utilized in the process of designing new forms to deal with humans who are Adult Babies so the fairies can properly assist them.”

“Um, h-hello,” I said, in the dream, if it was really a dream.

“Your dream self is currently visiting Fairyland, which is why we are able to interact,” said Redshift. “This is the only way humans can come here. But where you appear is somewhat unpredictable, and we need to get you to the lab, so …” She waved her wand, and suddenly I was in what would have been a baby stroller, only it didn’t have wheels or handles. It floated in the air and just sort of followed the fairy around. She took off into the air, and I followed behind, strapped in for safety, I assumed.

“We’ll be there in two shakes,” Redshift said. In fact, she held her wand tightly and shook it vigorously twice as she flew. The terrain blurred and sped beneath us, and suddenly we were in front of a huge mountain that had a large golden archway set into it.

“Is this … the Mountain of Memory?” I asked, around my pacifier.

“Hey, how did you know that?” asked Redshift. “Did Raintree and Nutmeg tell you? Anyway, we’ve got to get to the labs. It’ll be just a moment.”

She flew quickly off, and my floating stroller followed her through twisting and turning passageways until we reached a hallway with many glass doors. I caught glimpses of various animals, both land and marine, being fed or talked to by fairies, many of them dressed in lab coats like Redshift’s. Then I started to see other humans in the rooms, and some of them were in obvious diapers and dressed like babies! In every case they were sitting on the floor amid a collection of toys, and there were fairies observing them or talking to them. Suddenly a door opened, and Redshift preceded me into a similar room.

“Now, then,” said Redshift, as the stroller settled to the floor and vanished, leaving me sitting down, “before we start, is there anything you need? Are you thirsty? Hungry? I see you have your pacifier; many babies need those. Are you wet?”

I realized that I was in fact quite wet and nodded.

“Ah, Raintree’s been doing her job, then. Diligent, that one. But if it helps you concentrate, maybe you should be dry for now.” She flicked her wand toward me, and my diaper was dry again, at least, within this dream. If I woke up, would it be wet or dry? I didn’t know.

“All right, then,” she said, “let me begin with some simple questions. What is your earliest memory?” She went through a number of questions that I wasn’t sure had to do with anything, and after that I’m not really sure what she asked. It all kind of blurred together. After some time, she said something about my coming back the next night for more data, and then … I woke up.

I was certainly wet now. I hadn’t leaked, because the fairy nighttime diapers were so thick. But sunlight was streaming in through the window, pink with dawn, and I was back in my crib. Just two nights ago I wouldn’t have believed that the word “my” would ever come before words like “crib,” “diaper,” “pacifier,” “bottle,” or other baby items. But I was in my crib, in my very wet diaper, with my pacifier in my mouth. I was awake, it was early, and as I hugged Mr Bunny I wondered what today had in store.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, I was lifted from the crib and held in someone’s arms. My hinney was softly patted with those super wonderfully intense explodie in my mind kind. Each one raced through and through my body to explode in my mind with a shower of infantile contented glee.

Nutmeg cooed softly, “Ohhh, baby aww wet. Mommy fix her up and get her ready for daycare in a super jiffy.”

Next thing I knew, as my mind sort of cleared and began functioning on an older level, I was in what appeared to be a bassinet, with Nutmeg bent over and washing me and tickling me. I couldn’t help but squirm and screech as I splashed around in the warm soapy water.

After Nutmeg rinsed me off with the sprayer nozzle, I was suddenly lifted from the bassinet and twirled around rapidly several times. Nutmeg twirled her wand and said with obvious joy in her tone, “Wheeeee!” and then I came to rest on my back on a very thick, but firm pad.

Nutmeg took hold of my ankles and lifted my hinney in the air. I felt it as she rubbed some kind of gel on it, then placed me in the embrace of a super thick daytime diaper. She completed the task by powdering me well, the sweet smell of baby powder filled the air, then pulled the thick bulk between my legs and fastened it on with cute little pink safety pins that had adorable faces on them.

After several large raspberries in my tummy and a round of delightful piggies, I found myself in Nutmeg’s lap as she undid her top. Before I could protest, I had one of her nipples in my mouth and I began to nurse hungrily. I couldn’t help myself as the sweet watery taste of warm breast milk filled my mouth and warmed my tummy.

I found myself operating on two levels. On a purely baby level, nothing about this surprised me, because it was the normal and natural thing for a baby to do. Emotionally this was very grounding, as the baby part of me felt like this was the right place to be. But the adult part of me was freaking out. This was another adult woman here -- I wasn’t a lesbian, and touching another woman’s breasts wasn’t a fantasy that I normally had. Also, was this healthy? Was her milk laden with fats that weren’t good for my system? And why was Nutmeg lactating? Had she given birth recently?

The answers, by the way, are that as a Nursery Fairy, Nutmeg could lactate anytime she wanted, magically. And her milk was magically nourishing -- she later told me that the spell adapted it to the baby she was feeding. She could feed a baby tiger one moment and a baby kangaroo the next, and each would get exactly the nutrients it needed.

But also, it wasn’t completely true that this wasn’t a fantasy I normally had. I realized that at some level I had had this fantasy, but in a different context. I had often wondered what it was like to be a baby nursing at her mother’s breast. I didn’t have any nursing memories of my own mother, because I’d been too young, so all I could do was wonder. Until now, that is.

She let me drink my fill, and it just kept coming. I gradually stopped panicking once I realized that nothing terrible was happening, and the baby part of me felt such comfort and serenity that I couldn’t help being soothed. Once I just relaxed and let it happen, it gradually turned into a beautiful, fulfilling experience, and then my adult mind just sort of went away again.

Then I was over her shoulder being burped, and suddenly I was back. After burping loudly, I said, “Uh -- excuse me,” and Nutmeg smiled as she realized that I was adult Hannah again.

“Now, do you think I’d be burping you if I didn’t expect you to burp?” Nutmeg said. “Silly baby. But you go right on being silly, because you’re just so precious! Let’s get you dressed for daycare, OK?”

Nutmeg brought out a soft lavender little princess dress with matching plastic lined rhumba panties. She picked up the panties and held them out and cooed softly, “Is baby old enough to step in her panties, or does mommy need to put them on her?”

OMG! It was like I had been struck by lightning as those softly spoken words coursed all through me. I giggled and fidgeted for a minute then said, “Baby twy n does it mommy.”

Nutmeg held me against her as she smiled broadly. I had a hard time balancing for some reason. She helped me put one foot in them, then the next, then she pulled them up over the very thick diaper and straightened out the ruffly lace around the legs and waist.

Next thing I knew, my head and arms were in the dress and it was being pulled over me. Nutmeg buttoned it up in back, then straightened out the very short hem. It allowed the lace around my legs and a row of ruffles on my bottom to show.

I found myself seated while Nutmeg was putting a cute pair of what were obviously booties on my feet and tying the ribbons into a cute bow.

Nutmeg lifted me to her breast and began to pat my bottom in that special way. I didn’t remember much until Irene cooed to me, “Good morning Missy; have you been a good girl for Mommy?”

I couldn’t help myself as I giggled and nodded my head until my ponytails flew.” Yups! Amm goo girl n helps out all I cans.”

Irene clapped her hands together and said happily, “That’s wonderful, Sweetheart. I was wondering …” I noticed Nutmeg was waving her wand slowly behind Irene’s head. “… if you were a big enough girl to help out with your class today?”

I shrieked with joy as I bounced up and down and clapped my hands together, “I ams, I ams … Ohhh Miss Irene, baby ams big nuffies!”

Irene smiled as she took me by the hand and started leading me off toward my class. She said, “Don’t worry about your daughter; we will take very good care of her.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Nutmeg with a huge smile on her face, before she sort of just faded away and was gone.

“Now, Hannah, would you like to be a super helpful big girl and pass out these coloring sheets?” I nodded enthusiastically, and my ponytails bounced again. Irene gave me a stack of pictures for the kids to color and said, “Great! Just make sure that everyone gets one they like. And that includes you!”

Irene was making sure all the tables got one of the buckets of crayons, but whenever I approached a table, all the other kids were fascinated by me. Or perhaps it was the stack of pictures I was carrying. “I wanna tiger!” said Matthew, because he saw a picture of a tiger on top of the pile.

“Ooo, a giraffe, can I pwease have that one?” asked Melissa. I made sure she got the giraffe.

“Haha, I want that monkey!” said Tommy, so I gave him that one.

“Hey, he got a tiger, I wanna tiger too!” complained another boy, but I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly Irene was there, whispering in my ear that there were more than one of each kind. I dug in the pile and found another tiger and gave it to him. He was happy! I was making the other kids happy! In retrospect, my mind that day was a combination of my adult mind and a very young child’s mind.

When I had passed out pages to all the other kids, I still didn’t have one for myself. I sat down at one of the tables and looked through the remaining pages. I didn’t know which one I wanted.

“How about THIS one?” said Irene, holding up a different page.

I gasped. “OH YES PWEASE!” I said, probably too loudly, and she chuckled and gave it to me. It was a picture of a beautiful princess from a children’s movie. I was so excited that I wet my diaper, but of course I didn’t notice until later. I started coloring happily.

I reached for the blue crayon I had just put down, but it wasn’t there. “Heyyyy!” I said to Steven, who had picked it up, “I was just usin’ that! I not doned!”

“Sowwy,” Steven said, “I thought you was doned. Here.” He gave it back to me! “I use the green for now, till you’re doned wif that one. Is what you teached us the other day!”

“Oh!” I effused, overwhelmed with pride and joy. “You gonna grow up to be the sweetest boy ever! Alla girls will wanna kiss you!”

I colored all the blue parts of my page and gave it back to him, and soon he was happily coloring the lake behind the zebra in his picture.

The day passed rather quickly and nap time had arrived. All the little ones were stripped to their diapers and panties, then placed in the cribs with a bottle and a plushy to snuggle with. I was no exception. It felt so nice to be snuggled next to the huge purple Teddy Bear and nurse the large bottle of HiC red berry juice.

I sort of kind of remembered having my diaper changed once or maybe several more times after naptime too.

Suddenly. My eyes got huge with wonder as I discovered a large wiffle ball with a tinkly bell that played a tune when I rolled the ball. OMG! I couldn’t help myself as I rolled it against the wall and let it bounce off and rolled back to me.

I heard Irene’s voice say, “Hanna is such an adorable child, Mrs Campbell. We are so lucky to have her here with us. And she’s so helpful too. It’s almost like she’s the one teaching the class and I’m the attendant.”

I turned and saw Nutmeg as she nodded to me and replied to Irene, “Oh, yes, she’s a very helpful little girl. I think if you let her, she can completely take control of that class.”

Irene replied, “She will get that chance tomorrow. All the other children love and adore her. They all seem to be more under control when she’s playing with them.”

This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it was better than spending the rest of my life treated as a total infant … then again … my mind drifted off into the wonderful daydreams children had of me being a total infant. My adult mind sort of went to sleep as I became the toddler I looked totally like once again.

Nutmeg lifted me to her breast and started patting my hinney in that magical way. I heard her say, “You can rest assured my daughter will be more than able to fulfill any task you give to her …”

Nutmeg’s voice became unintelligible gibberish to my infant ears as I started to suck my thumb and enjoy the fireworks going off in my mind due to the hinney pats she gave me.

Nutmeg and Irene were making soothing cooing noises at me, and I giggled and … I don’t remember much after that, until lunchtime, when I think Nutmeg appeared and asked for an out-of-the-way place to nurse her daughter and was advised to use the teacher’s lounge. Then I don’t remember anything that happened for the rest of the day.

In a fairy library with many fairies sitting in their little cubicles, Craggon the administrative fairy was having a really hard day. The more she researched what an Adult Baby was supposed to be, the more confused she had become. The various types of Baby Fairies, of which the Diaper Fairies were one, were seemingly going to take on some new clients, but who? They already knew about those who just were totally incontinent for medical reasons, and the Diaper Fairy divisions already had their assignments there, but this was something new. But there was so much to decide and so few guidelines to go by that Craggon was getting confused and frustrated.

She looked at the folder with Hannah Campbell's name on it. It looked like the research division was still running dream tests on her. She flipped to the preliminary results … baby in spirit. Well, she already had a Wet Diaper Fairy and a Nursery Fairy assigned to her case, and a number of other Baby Fairies on standby. Nothing was any different between this Hannah Campbell and any other baby. She knew what to do with this one. Sure, there were a number of adult fairies also assigned to her, but they were all competent fairies and could work out what to do. Craggon stamped Hannah’s form “Baby,” the officiating magical impression glowing brightly as if it were on fire.

Over in the Records Department, the Life Force Book’s pages immediately riffled to Hannah’s page, containing all her information carefully scribed in silvery ink. A magical light then blazed across the page like a flame, burning new arcane words across the magical parchment that identified Hannah Campbell as not an adult, but a baby. Her age had not changed -- just her status.

And that wasn’t all. The book continued to magically flip to the pages of everyone in Hannah Campbell’s life, making changes here and there, rewriting their interactions with Hannah to reflect the new reality …

There was a knock on my apartment door, waking me up from my nap. My eyes popped open, and I realized I was in my crib at home. When had I gotten there? After work … daycare … whatever? Was someone going to answer the door?I heard the door open, and voices were talking, familiar voices. Then my bedroom door opened, and people quietly walked in: first Nutmeg, and then … my mother?

“Mama?” I said through my pacifier, embarrassed for my mother to see me like this. I realized that my diaper was drenched and blushed brightly.

“Oh, there you are, Honey,” said my mother, coming over and smiling sweetly. “Did you have a good nap? I see your nanny’s been fixing a nice supper for you. You must have been all tuckered out after your long day at daycare!”

“Mama, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to explain what’s happened,” I said, but my mother just shushed me.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright, Baby,” my mother said, “I just came over to make sure that my baby girl was doing all right. I worry sometimes, with you being a baby and living by yourself, but then of course you have Ms. Nutmeg to look after you, don’t you? So I shouldn’t worry. But still, I’m happy to see you!” She let down the crib side and put her arms around me, and I hugged her back, although I was still confused.

“But … Mama … I’m not supposed to be a baby …” I said.

“You’ll always be my baby, Honey,” my mother replied. “So beautiful … so adorable … and I’ll bet you’re the best at showing the little kids at daycare all the fun games and best projects to do to help them learn! Oh -- are you wet, Hannah?” She slipped a finger into my diaper and said, “Oh my goodness, you’re soaked, let’s get you into a dry diaper.”

“But … MAMA …” I protested as my mother guided me over to the changing table and began changing my diaper. “Nutmeg, um, does that.”

“Oh, nonsense,” my mother interrupted. “I was doing it long before she was. I still know how to change my daughter’s diapers!” And she did, removing the wet one and cleaning me up with the baby wipes under the table before powdering me and diapering me up again. “You’ll be just fine now, Honey.”

“Glad you came, Ms. Campbell,” said Nutmeg. “What with her diapers, her refusal to nap, and getting her back from daycare, I’m up to my elbows. Now I can finally get dinner ready for both of us. Are you staying? I can set another place for you.”

“Nutmeg!” I complained.

“Oh, I really must be going,” said my mother. “I’m meeting her father at the Cordoba. But I had to stop by and see how she was doing. I’ll tell Frank that she’s in good hands!”

“Well, thank you kindly, Ma’am,” Nutmeg said. “That’s high praise, coming from the expert in caring for Baby Hannah.”

“Now, you be a good girl for Ms. Nutmeg, Honey,” said my mother, hugging me once more and leading me to the high chair in the kitchen, helping me up and strapping me in before saying, “Bye bye, Hannah, and I’ll stop by again soon.”

After my mother had left, I turned to Nutmeg and asked, incredulously, “What happened? Why does my mother think I’m a baby? She knows I’m not!”

“Looks like something’s changed,” Nutmeg said. “I’ll have to ask the Records Department.”

Appearing from thin air, Raintree said in her tiny voice, “Yes, they put you in the files as a baby, which means that’s how others are going to start seeing you. I’m soo sorry this happened to your life! But maybe it means you’ll be happier now that the baby side of you is out in the open and you don’t have to hide it?”

“Hide it?” I shrieked as I started having a real infantile temper tantrum, “I’m notta baby ... am not am not am not!!!”

I kicked my feet, banged my fists on the highchair tray, and screeched until I felt a rather sharp slap on my bare thigh. It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t help what happened next as I began to cry. A terrible feeling ran all through me from the pop.

Nutmeg picked me up from the highchair and put me to her breast, then began patting my hiney softly, “There, there, Baby. When Baby is naughty, Nana will spank. Now be a good little baby and just enjoy your new situation. There’s nothing can be done about it at this point, the decision has been made and is final. The correction has been made.”

I couldn’t believe this had happened. All my plans, my boyfriend … what about my life? It appeared to me that all that was over, although I didn’t realize the depth nor the scope of the changes that had been made.

I found myself lost in a complete infantile haze and struggled to return to my normal mind. I realized at that point that I had no real idea what my normal mind might be.

Stunned, I sat there and opened my mouth as Nutmeg fed me my supper. I no longer knew what to think or what to do. Nutmeg and Raintree were the only support I’d had, and now they weren’t going to help me get my life back?

After supper, when I was in my playpen, I felt my diaper grow damp and asked, “Raintree? Are you really not going to help me get back to normal anymore?”

“I am,” Raintree said, appearing from invisibility. “I’m not sure Nutmeg is. She really does like taking care of you, you know. Please be appreciative! She loves that. It’s not her fault this happened.”

“I’ll … try to remember that,” I said.

“But the fact is that we didn’t know there were Adult Babies until --”

“But I’m not an Adult Baby or whatever,” I said. “I don’t even know what that is!”

“Well, you are one, like it or not,” said Raintree, “and you’re not the only one. It sure would be nice if the Adult Babies could all get together and talk. But I’m not sure how you’d do that. You’d all need each other’s phone numbers. Or addresses, so you could write letters. The future fairies say someday soon you humans will be able to talk over computers. But not yet.”

“C-computers?” I asked. Typing on chunky keyboards and making green letters appear on screens didn’t seem like a great way to communicate.

“I know, sometimes their predictions don’t make any sense,” said Raintree. “But anyway, you mean you’ve never, ever wished you could go back to being little? You’ve never felt like being a baby was the last time you really felt right?”

Since she put it that way, I realized that it was true. I had always felt like a fake in the grown-up world, pretending to be an adult, and not pretending very well, at that. “I … guess I have felt that way from time to time,” I said.

“So have a lot of other people, too,” said Raintree. “But … does it mean you need to be in diapers all the time, and does it mean you need a Wet Diaper Fairy and maybe even a Poopy Diaper Fairy to take away your bladder and bowel control, so you use them like a little baby does? I’m not sure. If not that, then what?”

“Is my … control really gone?” I asked. “Do I need diapers now?”

“It’s gone as long as I’m here!” Raintree said. “I take my job seriously. But anyway, I’m not sure how it’s going to be from now on. The discussion’s still going on. If Research takes you to do more testing in your dreams, maybe you can ask them.”

I could actually feel my adulthood slipping away as I started to suck my thumb while I worried over what was happening to me. I was so afraid my whole life would be ruined, until Nutmeg picked me up once again and began to pat my hiney in that magical way.

I’m not really sure how much time had passed, but when I came more or less back to a reasonable facsimile of something akin to adult, all I had on was my diaper, rhumba panties’ and a cute pair of googly eyed booties.

I looked around slowly and realized I was once again in my crib. Nutmeg came in and cooed softly as she turned me over on my back, “Theeere she is. Widdow baby soo cute.”

Then my mind went blitzed as she blew a most wonderfully intensely fantastic raspberry in my tummy. I kicked and screeched and squirmed as Nutmeg tickled me lovingly in my ribs.

I realized while this was happening, I had once again wet my diaper I had laughed so hard. Nutmeg, of course, took great pleasure in cleaning and rediapering me.

When she had finally finished she cooed softly, “Now, just so baby Hannah knows, I am required to treat you as any little 3 year old until, if, or when the home office decides otherwise.” Nutmeg shrugged with a happy grin. “Who knows? You might even be made to be younger than that.”

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted my life back, but … this was actually really nice sometimes. And Nutmeg was so friendly, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by making her think I didn’t want her here.

In another place beyond time and space as humans know it, many fairies studied many scrolls and ancient tomes of wisdom. The entire place was filled with many uncountable numbers of such volumes.

One fairy was heard commenting more to herself than any of the others, “By Bryan’s beard, this is going to change the whole face of mankind’s reality if what we see here is true. How in this omniverse could we have overlooked this trait for this long?”

A loud wave of murmurs washed all through the huge cavernous room.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere, a man named Joe was making his plans. Carefully concealing his .38 in the hollow of the small of his back, he checked his other gear and got out of his car, nonchalantly walking across the street and into the bank branch. He waited in line as if nothing at all were different about today, then when he got to the teller, he slipped her the note from his pocket he’d prepared. “THIS IS A HOLDUP,” it said. “I HAVE A GUN. GIVE ME ALL THE MONEY IN YOUR DRAWER AND I WON’T USE IT.”

But her response wasn’t what he expected at all. “Awwwww, Sweetie, that’s so cute!” she said in a musical sing-song voice. “Did you draw this yourself?”

Confused, he pulled out his gun. “Read it and do it, lady. I don’t have all day.” He pointed it directly at her chest. This branch had no bulletproof glass for its tellers; that was why he’d picked this one.

“Oh, are we a big bad outlaw?” she said in the same sing-song voice. “Where are your mommy and daddy? Is it cops and robbers today?” Some of the nearby customers and employees were starting to express the same sorts of feelings: that he was the cutest little boy they’d ever seen.

“I’m serious, lady,” he said. “I’ll prove it, but you won’t like it.” He aimed at her neighbor’s shoulder and pulled the trigger.

The teller he’d shot screamed in pain and looked at him in utter confusion. All around him everyone erupted into pandemonium, only instead of trying to comply with his note, it was all about, “How did he get it?” and “Parents should lock up their guns where their kids can’t get them!” The security guards surrounded him, seemingly unafraid of his ability to aim where he wanted.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Will the Senator yield the floor?” asked Senator Reynolds.

“Oh! It looks like one of our junior constituents has somehow joined us,” said Senator Okama.

“What --?” Senator Reynolds asked in confusion.

“How did you get in here, Sweetie?” Senator Okama asked. “Where are your parents? Are they in the gallery? Did you wander off?”

“But I’m …”

“You’re the cutest baby ever in your little suit!” said Senator Okama, trying to herd Senator Reynolds off the floor. “I’ll bet you’ll get elected to Congress someday, right folks?” There was general agreement. “But for now let’s get you back to your parents so we can finish talking about the healthcare bill, OK?” She left Senator Reynolds in the hands of some of the interns, who promised to find his mommy and daddy, while he protested.

“What is going on?” demanded Bryan Snowstone. “We’re getting reports of social disruption of all kinds all over the human world! And in every case it’s about some ‘baby’ or other who wasn’t where a baby should be, doing things a baby shouldn’t be doing! People are getting hurt! Oh, and by the way … nearly all of these ‘babies’ were over five feet tall!”

Forsythia looked nervously at Craggen. “Um, Sir, the Adult Baby files are still in progress …”

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about these ‘Adult Baby’ people!” Snowstone blustered. “Is Research done with their assessments?”

Peeking into the office, Redshift answered, “I was just passing by, Mr. Snowstone, but no, we’re not. Data collection is still under way, and analysis hasn’t even begun.”

“See?” Snowstone asked, gesturing at the door that Redshift was no longer standing in. “We don’t have any research conclusions yet, we don’t know what to do, and I’m guessing paperwork’s been filed already, hasn’t it?”

“B-but Sir,” Craggen began nervously.

“Don’t you ‘b-but Sir’ me, Craggen!” Snowstone said in a low tone, finger pointed at her. “What we’ve got here isn’t just some low-level tumult, not even a middling commotion. What’s going on out there is a full-blown kerfuffle! I want you to un-file that paperwork and file it under Unresolved until we get some good solid facts!”

“Oh, by the way,” said Redshift, peeking in another doorway, “this kerfuffle is actually yielding some very good data. It’s data about what shouldn’t be happening, of course, but it’s still quite valuable.”

“Stop that!” shouted Snowstone, but Redshift was already gone again. “What was the name of that human who started this whole mess? Bannah Yampbell?”

“Um, Hannah Campbell, Sir,” said Forsythia.

“Oh, that one,” said Craggen, rolling her eyes.

“Get her in here!” ordered Snowstone. “We’ll find out from her what to do.”

“Actually, she’ll be in here during the dream shift anyway,” said Redshift from yet another doorway.

“Knock that off!”

“You’re not actually my boss,” said Redshift. “But she’s going to be here anyway, if you want to talk to her.”

“Oh -- well, Dad said some loud words that made me cry even more -- oh! I didn’t understand them at the time, but I guess they were, ‘Now, quiet down, Cupcake, good girls get dessert but bad girls don’t.’”

“Did it work?”

“Not at all. I got a spanking when we got home.”

“I’m seeing that generated fractured and confused levels of interconnected emotion,” said Redshift.

“I … guess?”

“Interesting,” Redshift said.

“Is this a good time?” said Snowstone, opening the door.

“Santa?” I asked, because the fairy who had peeked in was portly and had white hair and a white beard.

“What?” he said, looking confused. “No, he’s at the North Pole, not the Mountain of Memory. Er, ah, my name is Snowstone, dear, and I’m in charge of Records. We just need to ask you what we should do about all these Adult Babies.”

“You’re … asking me?” I asked.

“We need to know what to do,” he explained. “There’s no precedent. Do we treat you as adults or babies? Do we send drunkenness fairies or tickle fairies? It’s just so confusing.”

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Redshift replied. “You don’t want rushed research.”

“So a century or two,” Snowstone concluded. To me, he said, “Please help us!” Meanwhile, Redshift was spluttering indignantly.

“Well look, everyone’s different,” I said, “but we’ve all got adult lives, though some of us would love to be able to be real babies sometimes. I actually really love all the attention Nutmeg gives me, and Raintree is very conscientious. She keeps my diaper wet all the time. Nutmeg’s very busy changing me.” I didn’t flinch or blush at saying any of this, probably because this all felt like a dream.

“Well, that’s good; I’ll pass that along,” Snowstone said. “But … how can you live both an adult human life and a baby human life at the same time? I mean … many of the Baby Fairies are very babyish themselves, but they’re still professionals. Other fairies don’t treat them like babies, except for their Nana Fairies at home … oh! I see! You mean you want to be an adult at work, but when you’re at home you want to be a baby.”

“Well, that’s close, but not really,” I said. “I mean, other humans should always see me as an adult, and I’d rather not behave like a baby in front of them unless they know about my secret baby side. I guess what I mean is, I should be making the choice about whether to act like a baby or not. Oh, and sometimes I’d like to not have to wear diapers, please.”

“So we should … just treat you like adults? Not send Baby Fairies to you at all?” Snowstone asked. “I have to say, that would be much simpler.”

“Well, we could make you forget them, but it’s not as if we can make them forget you,” he said. “But you’re a special case. We made a mistake on you, and we kind of owe you. Your file’s been in about six different wrong cabinets now. But for all the rest … what about them?”

Then began a long discussion, and Redshift got involved. “But the ones who deliberately unpotty train themselves …” “How about the ones who want to be baby girls even though they’re boys?” “What if they want one special someone to see them as a baby?” Many different cases. We talked about a lot.

They told me later that they found out that all this “new” data had actually been recorded within the great archival hall for centuries, but it had been overlooked. But at that time, all these revelations disrupted the human condition so much that even the king and queen had to be notified.

Within a very ornately decorated bedchamber filled with many large and sparkling jewels and other items, the king and queen lay in their handcrafted bed of gold. Above their heads, a glowing gem activated and filled the chamber with very bright reddish-purple light, which signified an impending disaster.

A tiny pixie appeared bringing an urgent message to the king and queen. The king rolled over angrily and said in a sharp tone, “Vitasepto? An’ jest whut’s gotten yer knickers inna twistie there, Lassie? Better be important, or I’m gonna has yer wings.”

The very pretty little wisp of an imp flitted to the king’s open palm and alighted. She produced a magical life scroll from the main archives and handed it to him before she vanished, leaving the bedroom in total darkness once again, except for those plants and creatures that happened to glow.

“Bryan? What is it?” asked the queen, rolling over. King Bryan reached over to his nightstand and ran his hand over the light orb, which began to glow softly deep within its core then rapidly filled the room with a very bright light, dispelling all shadow.

“Let’s find out.” The king put his gold glasses on and unrolled the scroll. His eyes grew large and his mouth fell open when he read of what was transpiring. “By me father’s beard!” he exclaimed. He threw back his quilt and sprang from bed, still in just his nightshirt and hat.

“Bryan?” called the queen, sighing and putting on her nightgown to follow after him.

King Bryan rushed out of the room, and down the great hall towards the Hall of all Knowledge. All he passed looked on with major surprise. To see the king dressed thus, this must have been very important. King Bryan knew he had to bring immediate order to this mess before those idiot fairies created a universal bother.

He flung open the great thick oaken doors to the Archives with a loud boom and stormed in.The noisy buzz of the room fell to silence as all eyes turned towards King Bryan, still in just his nightshirt and hat.

Silence reigned as none of the present fairies had any clue as to who had created the entry into the Life Force Book of Ages that had caused this domino effect to begin.

“Bryan, what is it?” asked the queen, finally catching up to him.

“Och, Bronnwyn, ‘tis this,” he said, handing her the message, which she read.

“Great stars and little fireflies!” she exclaimed. “How could the Life Force Book become this badly corrupted?”

“That’s what I’m aimin’ to know!” the king shouted, but no one in the room said anything. “Do none o’ you know how this happened?”

“Y-your majesty,” said a clerk named Moss, “you might want to ask Snowstone … I think he’s trying to find out the same thing. Maybe he’s learned something. I think he went to Research.”

“Brimstone and brambles,” said King Bryan, “that’s all the way over in the Mountain of Memory. Right then, Saltarello, Contrapasso, tell ‘em to hitch up the carriage, an’ wake up Pennyroyal to help me get dressed.”

“I’m coming too,” said Queen Bronnwyn. “We’re solving this together.”

“Ah, o’course, m’sweet, natcher’ly.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And that’s how it was that while Snowstone was asking me questions, we were interrupted by none other than the King and Queen of the Fairies. And me in my powder-pink footed sleeper and thick diaper, which was well soaked by that time.

“So you’re saying that --” Snowstone was saying when the door burst open and the King stepped into the room, with the Queen right behind him.

King Bryan began, “Here now, Snowstone, what’ve ye been findin’ out about the --”

“Your Majesty!” said Snowstone, quickly standing up from his chair and bowing deeply.

“Sire!” said Redshift, curtseying deeply while hovering in the air.

“Huh?” I said, looking at them and trying to stand up and bow respectfully at these newcomers, who were evidently very important people. “Y-your majesty.”

“Oh, knock it off, all o’ ye,” the King said. “Snowstone, did ye know ‘bout the mess that’s been made in the Life Force Book? They told me ye’d been lookin’ inta the blasted thing.”

“The Book?” Snowstone asked. “I … er … well, not as such, but I imagine these events have probably had an impact on it …”

“Now, Snowstone, you’ve been looking into a related problem, haven’t you?” the Queen asked levelheadedly. And Snowstone and Redshift quickly explained what had happened.

“Humans wishing to recapture the innocence and fun of youth are nothing new,” the Queen said, “but perhaps these ‘Adult Babies’ are taking it a bit farther than we’d seen before. Human, do you know much about this?”

I was startled and answered only after a bit of a pause. “I - I believe that I may be one of the Adult Babies of which you speak, Your Majesty,” I said. “But I didn’t call myself that until I was told what they were. I’ve never met any other ones, so I can only speak for myself, but I’m finding myself feeling far more comfortable in a child’s world than in an adult’s.”

“Only after discovering the error, Sire,” Snowstone said. “Hannah here was apparently its first victim.”

Redshift continued, “I only meant, Your Majesties, that there’s some evidence that some of the Baby Fairy divisions may need to take on some extra clientele.”

“Oh, is that all?” the King asked. “Or is there more that needs a-doin’? Besides fixin’ the thrice-beestung Book o’ Life Force, I mean?”

“Well, research is ongoing,” said Redshift, “so anything we do right now is strictly temporary, but we may need a new division or two, a new status for the Book, and that means a new stamp, a rearrangement of the org chart …” She ticked these things off on her fingers as she spoke.

“Any of this has to go through the proper channels,” said Snowstone.

“Now, see?” said the Queen. “None of this sounds too difficult, does it? And Snowstone, you sent word that the change should be undone and put in Unresolved, which should straighten out the Book in time.”

“Er, yes, Your Majesty,” Snowstone said. “Not that I knew about the Book when I did it, of course. It was just the proper thing to do.”

“How much time are we talkin’ about, then?” asked the King.

The other fairies in the room became very silent as they looked at each other fearfully.

The king became angry once again and said sharply, “Well? Did the No-Brainer take yer tongue along with yer minds? I asked ye how much time?”

Snowstone finally answered sheepishly, “It … might take several years, depending on how far back the reassignments went when the magic corrections started. We just managed to …”

The King came up to Snowstone and put his finger solidly in the middle of his face, then said harshly, “This mess better get resolved afore mornin’ … less’n all ye buncha dunderheads wanna spend the rest o’ yer time minin’ brimstone in Hades.”

Snowstone fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, “Please, your Majesty. I can’t force the Book to change itself unless it deems a correction is required. We can present the evidence, but the rest is up to it … and always has been.”

King Bryan said with even more menace in his tone, “I’m tellin’ ye dunderheads, if this mess has not gotten sorted like … now, heads’re gonna roll … literally.”

“My, you are so forceful, my love,” said the Queen, “but we may want to save that temper for those marauding Goblins on the border.”

“Aieee,” said the King, “no remindin’ me of those blaggards! Breakin’ the ancient treaty, harassin’ our people, but we gotta get the Book fixed!”

“Well, Snowsone, why don’t you put together an entreaty to the Book, since it’s all you can realistically do?” the Queen asked. “It might not work, but sitting around in this room chattering is guaranteed not to.”

“Yes, by all means, with your Majesties’ permission,” said Snowstone. “Er, human, Hannah, we might need you for this. Your name’s in that book. It was the first one to, err, go wrong.”

“Me?” I asked.

“Aye, ye best go with him, Lassie,” said the King. “I canna’ gi’ ye an order, since I am nae king of humans, but it willna be fixed wi’out ye.”

“Well, OK, but you may have to tell me what to do,” I said uncertainly. “Is … umm … is there a way …” I looked down at my diaper, which was very wet and sagging by this time, though this was not very visible beneath my sleeper.

“Your Majesty!” said Nutmeg, appearing amid a glow of light and curtseying. “Ask and it is yours. Hannah! You’re in your crib -- oh, this is dream-Hannah!”

“Dream-Hannah needs a bit of … care,” said the Queen. “If you would be so kind …”

“Oh, of course -- right away, your Majesty.” Nutmeg picked me up -- apparently relative sizes were even more fluid here in the fairy world. Or maybe it was because I was dreaming. She walked through the door carrying me -- and suddenly I was in the home of the Nursery Fairies.

Nutmeg carried me to a wonderfully soft and fuzzy place and laid me on my back. She unsnapped the legs of my sleeper and undid my diaper in ordinary fashion. When she lifted me by my ankles, I realized the soft fuzzy thing I was lying on was alive. I could feel it as it purred wonderfully beneath me. Nutmeg cleaned, powdered, then rediapered me rather quickly, then led me back into the room with the King and Queen. I , of course, was sucking my thumb when we entered.

The Queen cooed softly, “Aww, she’s so adorably cute.”

Snowstone took me by the hand. I felt so infantile as I waddled behind him. He led me to many places beyond my wildest fantasies, places where sick stars were nursed back to health, places where trees went to die, places where special fairies painted the many colors of butterfly wings, places where the blazing cold heart of hatred was kept imprisoned, and things I can’t even describe. I was finally led into a room where there were shelves full of books and scrolls on every wall, and the walls stretched up above me out of sight. There was a very large pedestal that appeared to have been carved from fire itself. Upon this pedestal rested the largest book I had ever seen.

“Now, while you were occupied, I prepared some words for you to say,” said Snowstone. “I’ll start, and then it’ll be your turn.” He handed me a piece of parchment. I looked at it. It was all written in a language I didn’t know.

“Umm, I can’t read this,” I said.

“Oh -- that’s right!” Snowstone said. “Brambles and briarthorns! It’s too late now. Look, I’ll just say my words, and then you tell the book that you’re not meant to be a baby.”

“But I --” I started to say, but he had already begun.

“Oh, great Book of Life Force,” Snowstone was saying, “we honor you as a symbol of the ancient pact between our people and the human world. We come before you, fairy and human, to express our encouragement to accept the latest advice we have given you. We regret that the last advice was in error. In case there is any confusion, this human is here to explain how things should be.”

Really? I was about to tell the book that apparently decided the destiny of every human on Earth how things should be. I could only mess up the entire world if I said the wrong thing.

“Err, hello, book,” I said, “and I guess it’s causing a lot of trouble on Earth for everyone to be treating adults like babies all the time. It’s been causing trouble in my life, I know. Maybe all of those adults should be treated like adults again until the fairies are done with their research. I think they’ve promised not to file any more of their special forms until it’s decided? But please, let the people whose papers are filed Unresolved be treated like adults again. Earth has enough chaos and confusion already. Um … thank you.”

“Well, I suppose that was good enough,” Snowstone whispered in my ear. “I guess now we’ll see what happens.”

“Thanks,” I whispered back. “When will we know?”

“You do know that your own file isn’t in Unresolved, don’t you?” he whispered.

“What?” I said. But the book had already sprung into action.

An ethereal bass voice that rumbled all through the archive spoke for the first time in uncounted centuries, “A human has come within the hall to plead for a correction? This is totally unprecedented and bespeaks a greater need than what is written.” As Snowstone and the other fairies in the room looked at each other in amazement, the massive book opened, pages uncounted ages old flipped, until it finally came to rest. The page ignited again with its unearthly fire, and the words rewrote themselves as the voice boomed, “Human infant, herein read your history. You who pretends to be an adult, this is your final decree. Your years now and always have numbered three. But you have also passed the time of such things, I see, so unto you I grant a special immunity. From now on, when you choose, an infant you shall be.” The book closed with a resounding boom that once again shook the entire archive.

“I … what?” I asked. “What did it mean?”

Carefully opening and turning the book’s pages and looking at them, Snowstone said, “It looks as if all the humans who were being treated as babies have been returned to normal. Hmm, that guy who robbed that bank just got arrested, instead of being in that padded playpen at the hospital.”

“What? Somebody robbed a bank?” I was astonished.

“Yeah, turns out he was an Adult Baby in private but never told anybody. Anyway, there’s a whole new chapter in here -- and it’s all about you,” said Snowstone, holding up a magnifying glass and reading carefully.

“What’s that mean?” I asked. “I’ve … always been three?”

“Well, technically no,” Snowstone said. “You weren’t born at age three. That’s just when you stopped getting older.”

“What?” I asked. “But I remember … going to school … graduating …”

“How old do you remember being when you graduated?” Snowstone asked.

“I … um … three,” I said.

“Yep,” he agreed. “And how old did you turn on your last birthday?”

“Errr … three.” I had to admit, it was consistent. It was as if I could remember things used to be different, but I remembered things most strongly this way now.

“So, you’re now a special case,” Snowstone said. “Congratulations, I suppose. There’ve only ever been a few special cases, and none quite like this. King Arthur, for one, but he just got put under a spell instead of dying. But it looks like you’ll be three forever.”

“For … forever?” I asked. I looked at my body. “But I’m still … an adult … kind of.” I was still dressed in my footed sleeper and those super-thick diapers that Nutmeg liked to put me in at bedtime.

“I think the details are yet to be worked out,” he said. “It’s clear, though, that as far as we’re concerned, we’re to treat you as any other three-year-old, except when you really don’t want us to. According to what’s written here, you probably won’t want to be totally adult anymore, so it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“And … there’s no way to fix this?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “The book seems to have made up its mind.”

“Oh,” I said. I thought about this.

“Sae then, it be taken care o’?” said the King, from the doorway.

“So it would appear, your Majesty,” said Snowstone with a bow. I tried to bow too, awkwardly because of the thick diaper, but the King didn’t seem to mind, and neither did the Queen, who was standing behind him looking adoringly at me with a large smile.

“I think the rest of the human world’s going to treat you as a three-year-old,” said Redshift, hovering and looking at the book.

The queen said in a soft coo, “She’s makes an adorable toddler, doesn’t she?”

“Oh, no,” I said.

“But you’re going to be the only three-year-old who can have her own career and apartment,” she went on. “It’s going to strain the fabric of reality a bit. But only a bit. I mean, all those deals the politicians and celebrities have made with the denizens of the infernal regions, and reality hasn’t collapsed yet. This is small potatoes compared to all of those. But I think that when you wake up your body’s going to be a three-year-old child’s.”

“Oh no!” I said, again.

“But you can opt out of that,” Redshift said. “Just whenever you want to, you’ll be that size.” She pointed at me. “And I think it’s likely that the Baby Fairies are going to react to the size you are.”

“What’s that --” I began, but then I heard a sound I’d heard before during my nocturnal visits here, the sound of a huge gong ringing. It was the Sunrise Bell, and it meant that my dream was ending -- not literal sunrise.

“Oh dear,” Redshift said, “well, we’ll see you later, Hannah Campbell. We’ll bring you back if we need to talk to you more.”

“Good luck,” Snowstone said.

“Fare ye well, human,” said the King.

“And thank you for helping us straighten out the book,” the Queen added as she kissed me on my nose. As things started to get fuzzy and I started to wake up, I heard her voice say, “Remember, you’re one of the few who’s seen us, and that means we might ask you for help again … but we never forget our debts …”

The sun was shining in the window and onto my face. The light was orangish. I was in my crib. And everything looked … huge. I held up Mr Bunny, and he was much larger than usual. I was a child! And my diaper was soaking wet.

“There you are,” said Nutmeg, appearing next to my crib, and Raintree was right behind her. “They told us what happened. Let’s get you cleaned up and ready for breakfast.”

As Nutmeg removed my diaper and got my bath ready, she said, “You can decide when you want me and the other Baby Fairies around and when you don’t. That’s not related to when you’re adult-sized and when you’re toddler-sized, by the way. You can be an adult-sized toddler if you want -- you’ll always zone out and play like a little child; you know how that feels. But you can do the same and be toddler-sized, or you can be adult-sized and be more or less an adult too, although other adults will still treat you like you’re three, although there are special dispensations.”

“But … you two are my friends,” I said. “I don’t want to send you away.”

“You don’t have to,” Raintree said. “We can be with you all the time if you want. But … if I’m around, visible or not, you’re going to be wetting yourself. It’s just what I do. I’m sorry. It’s just my job.”

“You know what?” I told her. “That’s fine with me. As long as I’m in diapers so I don’t leave puddles everywhere!”

“And as long as I’m around, you’ll be in nice thick comfy diapers,” said Nutmeg, “and I’ll be changing them often -- or zapping them dry with my wand, but changing them myself is more fun. One more thing, you will feel more and more like I’m your Nana mommy. Ohh, that’s so adorable.”

“They are really comfy,” I said, “and as long as everyone else sees it as normal for me to be in them, it’s not a problem for me.”

“They will,” Raintree said. “They’ll see you as three years old, and three-year-olds in diapers are far from unusual. Three-year-olds with jobs are more unusual, but I think you have a special exception there.”

“What about three-year-olds walking down the street by themselves?” I asked.

“Oh, you won’t be by yourself,” Nutmeg said. “I’ll be holding your hand. Or carrying you, or pushing you in a stroller, or whatever you want. We’re your friends.”

After breakfast, Nutmeg dressed me in a really cute green and yellow glow worm romper with several rows of white ruffles across its bottom, and soft socks booties. It was more than obvious I was in a very thick diaper as I turned side to side to look at my poofy ruffled hinney.

Nutmeg did as she said she would and lead me by the hand to the daycare center. All along the way, those that took notice treated me just like a cute little three year old toddler as the book had said. When we entered the daycare center, I couldn’t help it either, I was sucking my thumb as my mind mixed all the adult things with the three year old things and I became the Baby Adult all now expected me to be.

Irene came up and clapped her hands together and cooed happily in a singsong voice, “Theeerre ssshe is.” Somehow, it appeared Irene bent over in front of me, “And how’s our little teacher today? It’s a good thing your Nana brought you early, ‘cause all your class is going to have finger painting today. Isn’t that wonderful? You get to show all your friends how to make a huge mess. We are so lucky to have found a special teacher like you. You are the very best ever, and relate so very well with the other children. Now, we have to lay down the paper all over the floor, so come along.”

Irene held out her hand to me. I had this urge to take it as Nutmeg said, “I leave her in your capable hands. I’ll see you around 4:30 to pick her up.”

Irene waved as she led me down the short hall to the door I knew so well.

My life was now the strangest ever, with only a very few exceptions. But somehow I was also at home. I wanted to see where it went. Being three years old wasn’t so bad after all.